Month: November 2014

Answer: This is a really simple way of earning free Category A PDUs! On its website The Project Management Institute (PMI) offers a library of on-demand webinars for it’s members.

PMI currently offers webinars in the following categories: Agile, Benefits Realization, Career Management, Change Management, Communications, Industry-specific, Leadership, New Practitioner, Organizational Project Management, Requirements Management, Risk Management, and Scheduling. I’m sure you have just seen at least one topic that piqued your interest.

Earning your first PDU through PMI’s on-demand webinars is really just a few steps away:

Make note of the last slide in each presentation where you are shown an “activity code” to be used when claiming your PDU in the CCRS system at https://ccrs.pmi.org/.(That slide also includes detailed step-by-step claiming instructions.)

Often when identifying a risk there is confusion about what should be captured in a risk register. The information actually captured in many organisations’ risk registers makes it very difficult to manage the risks.

There are a number of traps that organizations fall into:

#1 Trap for Players – the Broad Statement Risk Trap

Some organisations fall into the trap of capturing “risks” that are broad statements.

Examples include:

Reputation damage;

Compliance failure;

Fraud; and

Environment damage

These tell you nothing and cannot be managed – even at a strategic level.

#2 Trap for Players – the Causes as Risk Trap

The most common issue with risk registers is that many organisations fall into the trap of capturing “risks” that are actually causes.

Another trap that organisations fall into when identifying risk is the trap of capturing “risks” that are actually consequences.

Examples include:

Project does not meet schedule;

Department does not meet its stated objectives; and

Budget overspend

Once again – these are not able to be managed. If these are the traps that organisations fall into, then what should our risks look like? The answer is simple – they need to be events/incidents.

When something goes wrong like a plane crash, a train derailment, a food poisoning outbreak, major fraud etc. it is always an event. After the event there is a post event analysis to determine what happened, why it happened, what could have stopped it happening and what can be done to try and stop it happening in the future. Risk management is no different – you are trying to anticipate and stop the incident before it happens.